


Crows

by epistolic



Series: Monster [1]
Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 13:50:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5050891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epistolic/pseuds/epistolic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s bad news, falling for Jiyong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crows

“They got Youngbae.”

Jiyong is leaning against the railing. Seungri is too busy watching him – it’s mid-afternoon and the syrupy light washes over the planes of Jiyong’s face, the sharp lines of his body, his shirt half-transparent in the sun, all the hard edges and the knifepoint beauty of him braced into the wind.

Seungri sits on an upturned crate, peeling an apple with his switchblade. Doesn’t process what Jiyong’s said. Too dazzled by the slant of sunlight at its current precise angle. “What?”

“They got Youngbae. Yesterday. Jumped him while he was on the way home, the fuckers.”

“Oh. Shit.”

“They got him in the hospital.”

Seungri stops what he’s doing. “He okay?”

“Meh, you know Youngbae.” Jiyong laughs a little, spits over the railing. “He called earlier. You know they stuck him in the same ward as two of ‘em? He nearly punched their teeth out a second time.”

Seungri doesn’t know Youngbae, actually; doesn’t really know anyone. Youngbae is quiet, brutal, follows Jiyong like a shadow, the blood on his knuckles always fresh. Youngbae doesn’t seem like the kind of person to take orders but that’s Jiyong’s particular kind of animal magic: you’re caught before you’re caught, and then it comes to you as naturally as breathing, something dark and inevitable. No going back.

“You wanna go see him?” Seungri says. “Buy him flowers?”

“Ha! Sure. He’d punch out _my_ teeth next. Why don’t you try it, _maknae_?”

“I like my teeth. They’re pretty.”

“Everything about you’s pretty. You can afford to miss a few teeth.” Jiyong turns, tosses him a lazy grin over one shoulder. “What you doing?”

“What’s it look like I’m doing? Getting my vitamins.”

“ _Vitamins_. Tch.”

Jiyong pushes up from the rail, moves out of the sun. Moves closer.

There are times when Seungri is afraid to look at him. Thinks that surely everything must be written all over his face. Jiyong’s hand falls on his head, casually mussing his hair and Seungri is wound tighter than a clock spring, holding his breath, afraid it’ll come spilling out of him like something shameful.

“You’re an idiot,” Jiyong says. His hand pulls away. “C’mon, let’s go find some trouble.”

\--

Trouble is them, three others, an alleyway, a whole lot of broken bones.

Jiyong rears back mid-fight. He roars. You don’t expect such a sound to come out of a human being but it does. And then Jiyong grins, bright and jagged, leaps back into the fight with his fists up and his teeth bare in a snarl, ready for war.

Afterwards Seungri stays bent forward for a long moment, hands propped on his knees, catching his breath and blinking the blood out of his eyes.

“You ‘kay, old man?” Jiyong thumps him on the back. 

“’m fine.”

“You look like crap,” Jiyong says, laughing, pulling him up to look at his face. Jiyong is exultant, alight, very beautiful; bloodlust comes off him in waves. “That’s gonna be one nasty black eye tomorrow.”

“’S nothing. Whoa, shit.” Seungri grabs at Jiyong’s jaw to hold him still. “What happened here?”

“He bit me, the little fuck! Nearly ripped my ear off.”

“Looks like a hickey.”

“Such a perverted little _maknae_ ,” Jiyong says, and licks him.

They dissolve into giggles. It’s ridiculous: Seungri is sore all over, he’s thrown his shoulder, he feels like he can’t really close his mouth without something in his jaw clicking hard, but Jiyong is here and they’ve _won_ and there are three bodies passed out in the dirt because of them, because of _them_ , together, and Seungri’s blood is singing high and shrill in his ears, his heart a snare drum chatter behind his ribs. 

Jiyong’s body is pressed in so close, Seungri can smell the blood-tang on him. His scraped skin and the gravel in his hair. 

Seungri stops laughing.

Jiyong’s breath huffs into the side of his neck. “You hold your own pretty well, for a pen-pusher.”

“Shut up. Just ‘cause I didn’t flunk high-school.”

“Eh, algebra. Who needs that shit anyway.”

Jiyong slings an arm around him, does that thing where he shifts all of his weight onto someone else. Melts into Seungri like a cat. Seungri stumbles for a second, trying to adjust, laughing again because he can’t help it. He just can’t help it.

“Home!” Jiyong shouts, and Seungri obeys, tucks his smile away like the dirty little secret it is.

\--

Daesung whistles, low and impressed. “Nice.”

Seungri groans. He feels anything but. He hobbles into the kitchen, trying to move every part of his body as little as possible. Even his eyes hurt. He gets the fridge open, almost falls inside.

He’s doing this wrong, he knows. All the others wear their battle scars proudly, bruises displayed like regimental colours. _The pain_ , Jiyong had said once, crooning it low into his ear, _is what we live for. The pain is a reminder._ A reminder of what, he hadn’t explained; had just expected Seungri to know, to taste it on the air.

“Where’s the beer?”

Daesung gets up off the couch. “We’re out, you drank it all. Remember?”

“No. Why didn’t you get more?”

“On it, asshole,” Daesung says, swiping the keys from the table. Daesung is like this: kindness peppered with insults, just in case people think he’s getting soft. “Try not to bleed all over my couch.”

Jiyong swans in, wearing sunglasses to highlight the spectacular purple blooming across his cheek. 

“Who’s bleeding?” he says. Then, losing interest immediately, “Where’s the big guy?”

“Out. Dunno.”

Seungri can feel the exact moment Jiyong’s attention fastens on him. “You got the hot flushes, _maknae_?”

“Fuck off,” Seungri says, and Daesung laughs from somewhere down the hall. “Jesus, there’s nothing to eat here. What the fuck. Youngbae’s only been gone for _two days_.”

“Tch. Here, I’ll do it.”

Half an hour later they’re crammed together on the couch, thigh to thigh, eating burnt eggs and a melted stack of marshmallows with chocolate sauce. Jiyong eats like he always does: fast, reckless, shovelling it in like he’s afraid it’s all going to disappear in the next minute.

“What’s with you?” Jiyong says, suddenly, in between bites. 

Seungri freezes. “Huh?”

“You. You’ve been weird.” Jiyong doesn’t look at him. His throat bobs as he swallows. “What’s the problem? I been pushing you too hard?”

“No. Jesus. No.”

“Then what? Girl trouble?”

Jiyong, cycling through the things he understands: war, violence, women. Seungri can feel his breath stick high in his throat. And he thought he’d been so careful.

“I don’t get girl trouble,” he says, light as he can. “Soon as they give me trouble, I just dump ‘em.”

Jiyong grins at that. “Eh, so heartless.”

“Can’t help it. Born that way. I get bored easy.”

“No shit. ‘S why you’re here with us, right?”

Seungri looks at him. Jiyong has a smear of chocolate on his nose, is eating both his eggs and his marshmallows together. The bite-mark from yesterday a darkening bud on his neck.

“Yeah, sure,” Seungri says. “Why else?”

\--

Youngbae comes back all by himself, right arm in a sling, navigating the roads back home one-handed.

Seunghyun emerges from his room. His gaming headphones are still clamped to his head. Only the most momentous occasions can chisel Seunghyun out from his hovel: the start of a turf war, police at the door, someone getting stabbed or maybe run over. 

“Collarbone,” Seunghyun says. He nods to himself. “Ribs.”

Jiyong gives him a hard punch to the shoulder. “Hey, quit it. Give the man some space.” 

Jiyong’s grinning though. They all are. Even Youngbae, who doesn’t smile much, has a tell-tale curl to the side of his mouth. 

“ _Maknae_ ,” Youngbae says. “Your eye. Your last girl get a bit rough on you?”

“Shut it,” Seungri says, but he’s laughing. “What’d _you_ know? You never even had a girl.”

“He’s walking wounded now. Girls dig that.”

“Daesung, you don’t got a clue what girls dig, so just shut up.”

“I got more of a clue than you, asshole! At least none of mine have set my bed on fire.”

“That was _once_ ,” Seungri says, petulant. “ _Once_.”

“What, once not enough for you?”

Jiyong stays quiet. His whole face is lit up, his dark eyes shining. He’s plastered to Youngbae’s side. Jiyong is like this, needs to touch people, fingertips always seeking out a wrist, ankles forever roving under the table. Seungri watches as he leans in, mouth up against the shell of Youngbae’s ear; whispers something that makes Youngbae’s face crack open in a laugh.

The knot in Seungri’s stomach pulls tighter, like an old bullet-wound. 

Seunghyun nudges him. Shakes his head, slowly. “Don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t,” Seunghyun says again. His voice is low, soft, pressed in close so that the others can’t hear. 

He doesn’t elaborate. _Don’t stare. Don’t try and trap him, he won’t stand for it._ Seunghyun was in love with Jiyong, once; probably still in love with him. Aren’t they all? Jiyong walks into a room and Youngbae sits straighter, Daesung smiles, Seunghyun gets a crooked little look in his eye. 

It’s bad news, falling for Jiyong. It happens anyway, you can’t really help it. But it’s still bad news.

\--

“Where you going, pretty-boy?”

Seungri opens his mouth to answer, shrieks instead. Jiyong’s put his hands on either side of his neck and Jiyong’s hands are fucking _freezing_.

Jiyong collapses against him, laughing so hard he nearly knocks them over. “Oh holy fuck your _face_ – ”

“Shut up.” Seungri bites the inside of his cheek, tries to keep from smiling. “You little bitch. I’d kill you, but I don’t wanna get blood on my shoes.”

“They new?”

“Gotta look pretty for the ladies.”

Jiyong steps back, looks him over. His mouth tips in consideration. Seungri’s black eye has faded now, barely there, but he’s slicked some concealer over the late bloomer next to his lip, used a hint of liner over his lashes. The shirt’s clean. Seungri’s even sort-of ironed it. 

“Do I pass?”

“Nah.” Jiyong is watching him, too closely. “Not yet.”

Jiyong reaches out. Seungri jolts, remembers only at the last moment not to jerk back; Jiyong’s hands are full of violence but never against him, or at least, never any violence that he can’t handle. Seungri’s been on edge for so long that sometimes his body can’t tell the difference any more. 

Jiyong’s thumb brushes over his bottom lip. Lingering, for just a second.

Then it moves to the side and wipes the concealer off.

“There,” Jiyong says, satisfied. His teeth flash happily. “S’ better now. Go knock ‘em flat.”

\--

Seungri gets stone-drunk.

Not even pretending to enjoy it: just sits in the booth, his knees squashed under the table. Knocks the shots back one after the other. Forgetting the feel of Jiyong’s skin on him; how, just for a moment, he’d thought – 

By the time he gets out of the club his whole body is thrumming, a vibration that starts down in his heels and climbs darkly up, shinbone, pelvis, spine. His hands have curled themselves into fists. His nails bite into his palms. He understands for a second what the rest of them must feel: something raw and dank and feral, a terrible and inarticulate thing that crests deep inside him like an avalanche. Sheer, brute noise, desperate to shake itself out of his lungs.

The killing urge comes over him. Most times he can hold it back, but not this time.

He goes to the alleyway and he waits.

\--

“The _fuck_ ,” Jiyong hisses, and the car spins in close. “The _fuck_ , Seungri.”

Seungri is standing by the wall, though the wall is doing most of the work. He’s vaguely aware that he’s dripping a widening puddle on the concrete. So much for not getting blood on his shoes. 

Dawn breaks overhead. Jiyong’s face swims into view, white with anger, eyes bright as gun-oil.

“Fucker,” Jiyong is saying. Again and again. 

Even like this, Jiyong is beautiful. Fury transforms him. The grip on Seungri’s arm is so hard it’s painful and Seungri knows there will be bruises there tomorrow, a perfect five-pointed constellation. He sways into Jiyong’s body; Jiyong smells like leather and petrol, like Youngbae’s cigarettes.

Jiyong’s hand disappears under his shirt, comes back painted red.

“Knife,” Seungri tries to explain. “Dark – didn’t see – ”

“Shut up. Get in the car.”

Jiyong drives with blanched knuckles, tires screeching on the road. 

Seungri passes out for a while. His body is so tired. All those long days of holding his breath, of keeping his eyes fixed on the sun. All those days of waiting. And hasn’t Jiyong come for him?

Next he knows he is being wrestled out of the car, Daesung peering worriedly into his face.

“’m I dying?” Seungri asks.

“I wish,” Daesung says, terse. “Save me all those fucking beer runs. Hey, Jiyong, wait – ”

Jiyong barrels past them. His whole body is one slick line of intent. Seungri’s only seen him like this once before, when a bunch of neighbourhood idiots crashed into Daesung’s car, nearly plastered him against a guardrail; Jiyong tracked each of them down, landed two of them in Intensive Care for weeks.

Jiyong comes back out. There’s a pistol in his hand.

“No,” Seungri says. His head swims. “No, don’t – ”

“Get him inside, Daesung. Be right back.”

“ _Hyung_ – ”

But Jiyong’s already gone. The car screams away from the curb. Daesung sighs, slides an arm around Seungri’s waist to prop him up, doesn’t say anything. Nothing left to say.

\--

Their world has rules.

Fists only. Fists and teeth. Foul play encouraged. But no knives, no guns, no baseball bats, no crowbars, no weapons except the ones you were born with, no stakes but the land and the blood in your veins.

Youngbae sits by the bed, toothpick clamped between his teeth. “ _Maknae_.”

“He back?”

Youngbae shrugs. No. Youngbae looks tousled, like he’s been sleeping in an armchair for days. 

Seungri swallows. “’m sorry.”

“Shut it.” Youngbae fishes out a cigarette, shoves it between Seungri’s lips: Youngbae’s particular brand of comfort. “Jiyong gets like that. Got crazy in his blood. I know him. Only a matter of time ‘fore he kills someone anyway. Least this way it sends a message.”

“Where’s the others?”

“Dunno.”

“How long’ve I been out?”

Youngbae looks up, lighter poised in his hand. “’Bout two days.”

Seungri still feels drunk. They’ve probably pumped him full of cheap gin and Oxy, because he doesn’t hurt anywhere. He watches as Youngbae leans across to light him up, awkward from the sling.

“He likes you,” Youngbae says finally.

“What?”

“The rest of us, we’re here ‘cause we don’t got a choice. Me, I been with Jiyong since we were kids. Seunghyun, Daesung, they got nothing but what we’re making here.” Youngbae settles back. “You, though. You had a spot in college, yeah? Won’t pretend to understand what the fuck you were doing there, but point is, you had a choice. You could’a been something.”

Seungri says nothing. Can’t find the right words anyway.

“You be careful,” Youngbae says. “Jiyong, he got something in ‘im. Likes to wreck things.”

“I know. Seunghyun tried to warn me off him.”

Youngbae nods, pleased. “Well. Long as you know what you’re in for.”

Seungri opens his mouth but then Seunghyun appears in the doorway like a magic trick, still in the shirt Seungri last remembers him in, hair spiked from sleep.

“Ribs,” Seunghyun says, slurring a little. “Right lung.”

Youngbae laughs and the moment breaks. “You big idiot, we know that already. Go back t’bed.”

Seunghyun’s head bops in agreement as he goes.

\--

Jiyong hits him.

How it happens: Jiyong comes back on the third day, eyes feverish, fifty, sixty hours without sleep. He smells like bleach, like he’s scrubbed carefully under his fingernails. 

“Out,” Jiyong snarls. 

Youngbae stands. He looks at Jiyong, says, “You take it easy now.”

The moment Youngbae is out of the room Jiyong does it. A full-force blow across the face that knocks the air from Seungri’s lungs. Then Jiyong grips his jaw with one hand and kisses him, hard, like he wants to rip Seungri to pieces, like he’s been flooring the accelerator the whole way back, teeth catching Seungri’s bottom lip and biting down.

“ _Shit_ ,” Seungri says, trying to pull back. But Jiyong’s got him pinned there with nowhere to go. “Jiyong – ”

Jiyong hits him again. “Shut it.”

There’s blood in Seungri’s mouth. Jiyong’s clenched a fist of his hair, tips his head back with a rough jerk, fits their mouths together a second time. Seungri feels light-headed, unsure if it’s the blood loss or the feel of Jiyong straddling his hips, all his wounds re-opening, Youngbae’s stitches be damned. Jiyong’s hard and Seungri makes a soft noise into his mouth. Thinks blindly, nonsensically, that he’s going to die.

“Asshole,” Jiyong says. “Fucker. Gonna fucking rip you apart, you little shit.”

“ _Hyung_ ,” Seungri manages. “ _Hyung_ , please.”

Jiyong sucks in a deep breath through his nose. His grip on Seungri tightens. His eyes go dark. 

He leans back down.

\--

Afterwards Jiyong sleeps for thirteen hours straight, an arm and a leg trapping Seungri in bed.

Daesung comes in to laugh at him. Mostly, though, Daesung comes in to feed him, to check his bandages, to make sure he’s got enough painkiller left in his bloodstream. 

“How bad’s it out there?” Seungri whispers, once.

Daesung pauses. Daesung’s a decent sort, finds it hard to lie to someone’s face. 

“It’s bad,” Daesung admits. He hands Seungri a plastic container of food and a fork, gently, softly, trying not to disturb the air in case it wakes Jiyong up. “Jiyong’ll figure it out, though. Always does. You just take your meds, stop moving around. Youngbae’ll thrash you if those stitches open up again.”

“Right.”

“Get some sleep, asshole.”

“’Kay, ‘kay, stop nagging.”

Jiyong’s passed out in his lap, one side of his hair standing up like an explosion. The sleek dive of his neck into the collar of his shirt. The way he sleeps with his fingers curled, one arm thrown across his eyes, trying to get away from the weak sun coming in through the window; the way he still smells like death. The way he is capable of it in a way that none of the rest of them are. 

Youngbae had said to him, _he likes you._

_He likes you._

Seungri isn’t hungry. He isn’t tired, or hurting, either. There’s something new bubbling in him, a thing he doesn’t want to name, not yet. Doesn’t want to jinx it. Doesn’t want to startle it away, like a bird.

He’s waited for a while now. He can wait, for just a bit longer.

\--

“Gimme a kiss,” Jiyong says, and puckers up.

Seungri swats him away half-heartedly. “Jesus. ’M holding a gun, here.”

“So what? You gonna shoot me?”

“If you’re gonna do it,” Youngbae says, assembling his own weapon calmly in the corner, “you gotta at least take the safety off, _maknae_. Y’know what a safety is?”

“Fuck off. How hard can this damn thing be, anyway.”

Seunghyun is grinning, juggling his pistol from one hand to the other, testing the trigger. “’S neat. Real neat. Jiyong, what we doing, exactly? We gonna kill someone?”

The corner of Jiyong’s mouth tips up. Seungri stops what he’s doing, forgets he’s even doing it. 

“More than that,” Jiyong says, a sharp flash of teeth. He stands. “We’re gonna make us a start.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know I promised canon, but I got maybe halfway through writing a canon GTOP fic and then this fic just blurted itself out, I couldn't help it. Sorry! Next time, next time!
> 
> In my head I've got this planned as a series, hopefully you guys like it enough to keep reading. Let me know what you think, 'kay? I really do appreciate all your feedback, it keeps me inspired and writing.
> 
> For updates on any future fics, feel free to add me on [Tumblr](http://epistolica.tumblr.com), [LiveJournal](http://epistolic.livejournal.com), or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/#!/epistolic)! ♥


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